Distinct inflammatory gene expression in extraocular muscle and fat from patients with Graves' orbitopathy.

OBJECTIVE

This study sought to compare patients with thyroid eye disease (TED) and normal controls with respect to the expression of the and genes in orbital fat (OF) and extraocular muscle (EOM).

DESIGN AND METHODS

A prospective study design was used to evaluate 34 TED patients and 38 healthy controls. OF was harvested from 33 TED patients and 27 controls. EOM biopsies were obtained from 32 TED patients and 18 controls. Samples were examined by real-time PCR and evaluated using appropriate statistical analyses with a significance cut-off of  < 0.05.

RESULTS

mRNA levels were higher in TED EOM (median 213 (96-376)) than those in control EOM (78 (34-138)) ( < 0.001), and expression was elevated in TED muscle (223 (31-520)) relative to that in control muscle (8 (6-31)) ( < 0.001). expression was higher in TED EOM (0.78 (0.47-2.01)) than that in control EOM (0.22 (0.09-0.51)) ( < 0.001). Levels of , and were higher in TED EOM (115 (20-223), 111 (54-299) and 0.11 (0.03-0.19), respectively) than those in control EOM (5.8 (2-13), 21 (5-52) and 0.05 (0.001-0.03) respectively) ( < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

Tissues involved in GO exhibited different mRNA levels of and . Gene expression in OF was similar for TED patients and controls. , and mRNA levels were higher in TED EOM than those in control EOM. was disproportionally elevated compared with ; this finding was indicative of a local proinflammatory profile.